


here, at the end of the beginning

by hellodeer



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 2018 Winter Olympics, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellodeer/pseuds/hellodeer
Summary: Sara licks her wounds.





	here, at the end of the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was part of kings on ice zine! i think pdfs are still on sale, so if you're interested, check it out on tumblr! :)

Sara’s short program goes something like this:

She perfectly lands the opening combination, a triple flip-triple toe loop, adds a Tano just for show. Her triple loop is somewhat shaky. The double Axel is good, and so is the Biellmann spin that follows it. The step sequence feels great, fueled by loud cheering from the crowd.

It gets her second place, a seat at the press conference table and lots of smiles from her coach. It’s close enough.

Her free skating, though, is another story.

The double Lutz goes okay. The triple flip-double toe combination is smooth and graceful, but she falls down, hard, on the triple flip. She salvages the triple toe loop and the triple toe, then turns her double Axel into a single and falls again on the triple Salchow. By the time she gets to the step sequence she’s tired and miserable and it shows. The spins are her only saving grace.

It’s not enough. She gets bumped down to fourth place, leaves yet another Olympics with empty hands and red-rimmed eyes.

It had been the same at the last Olympics, flying too close to the sun only to forget her wings are glued with wax. Fourth place, too. Always almost there, almost grasping it, this time, surely— well, maybe next time.

Maybe it’s PyeongChang. Sara doesn’t know what it is about this city that just doesn’t seem to agree with her. She’s used to ice rinks, used to the cold and dry air that sometimes gives Michele nosebleeds, his skin too sensitive and a defective immune system they don’t share. But PyeongChang is always freezing, always cloudy and wet and windy.

(She knows it’s got nothing to do with PyeongChang and everything to do with her own nerves, a steady flow of anxiety constantly drumming under her skin that makes her hands shake and her knees wobble, but it’s easier now, raw from defeat and disappointment, to blame the city.)

She lifts her eyes from the laptop screen and looks over the skyline outside the window. The outline of the city is grey, the buildings blending into the dark sky. It’s close to one in the morning, late enough that most of the windows she sees are dark, only a few lights here and there. The room is silent, her roommate gone to hang out with her American hockey player boyfriend.

Sara goes to her suitcase and takes out her camera. It’ll make for a nice shot, the few lights against the dark, starless sky. She takes some pictures of the details in the Olympic village room, too— the polished nightstand between the narrow beds, the curtain a little frayed at the corners, the trash can. She’s adjusting the focus on the gritty, weird slime that covers the shower head when there’s a knock on the door.

She knows who it is, has been anticipating and dreading this moment since the victory ceremony hours ago.

“Hi,” Mila says, when Sara opens the door. She looks freshly showered and shy, with her hair wet and an uncertain smile dancing on her lips.

“Hey,” says Sara. The sight of Mila always makes her giddy with a mixture of affection, want, hurt and sometimes, this time, resentfulness. It’s exhausting, more exhausting than skating competitive programs two days in a row while her body battles leftover jet-lag.

“Can I come in?” Mila asks, voice barely above a whisper. 

Sara opens the door wider and lets her come into the room.

Mila stands in the center of the room, arms awkwardly hanging by her sides. She’s nothing like the elegant, ethereal being who delivered two perfect performances and stood on top of the podium tonight, the long lines of her back tense and straight. Here, in front of Sara, Mila is just a nineteen-year-old in love, unsure and scared.

Sara raises the camera to her eyes, snaps a picture of Mila’s frown. She looks beautiful even like that, but not as much as she does on the ice.

“I made you something,” Mila says. Sara lowers the camera to see her take something out of her back pocket. She takes a few steps closer, holding out her hand. “Here.”

It’s a bracelet. Purple, double-leather, fastened together by a small, round silver clasp. Two charms in the shapes of the letters S and C hang from it. 

Sara takes it from Mila’s hand. It’s soft and warm, and the charms are a little dented.

“It is birthday present,” Mila says, smiles a little. “I wanted to give to you when the season started, but we only saw each other at Grand Prix Final and you were so focused I did not want to intrude. Same at Europeans. And now.”

Mila’s mother is a famous jewelry designer in Russia. Sara never thought Mila would have the patience for the job, the endless hours of craft, working with your hands on the smallest details to make each piece unique and perfect. 

But figure skating requires the same amount of dedication and love, days and days to make a program look smooth, beautiful, effortless.

Sara thinks of Mila asking her mother for help. Thinks of Mila getting home from the rink, tired from practice and Yakov’s yapping, slotting a couple of hours between studying and sleeping to make this. It probably took her weeks. The color of the leather matches Sara’s eyes.

She thinks about how Mila probably put the bracelet inside a cute gift box, wrapped it with a ribbon and put it in her suitcase. And kept putting it inside her suitcase, competition after competition, never knowing how or when to approach Sara, until finally the gift box was so crumpled and ugly and she had grown so anxious and tired she decided to just hand it to Sara.

“Thank you,” Sara says. Her voice sounds weak, choked up; there are tears in her eyes. She blinks them away, clears her throat and looks up at Mila. “It’s beautiful.”

Mila smiles, nods. Holds out her hand again. It takes Sara a second to realize what she wants.

She gives the bracelet to Mila and offers her arm, palm up. Sara’s heart thunders, a loud and strong _boom boom boom_ against her rib cage as Mila clasps it around her wrist.

“There,” Mila whispers, stroking her fingers briefly on the sensitive skin of Sara’s wrist, a feather touch.

She clears her throat again. The way Mila looks at her from under her eyelashes makes the hair on the back of Sara’s neck stand on end, makes her burn like ice. It’s weird, this feeling, but Sara’s been getting used to it over the years, across continents and Grand Prix Finals, European Championships and Worlds.

“Congratulations, by the way,” she suddenly says. Mila recoils, shoulders tensing, like Sara said something much worse.

“Thank you,” she nods, stiff. “I am sorry you missed the—”

“Don’t,” Sara interrupts. Maybe it comes out sharper than she intended, but she’s already got this kind of crap from her coach, Michele, her parents, strangers on the internet. She doesn’t need it from the champion. She’s got enough self-pity that she doesn’t need it from anyone ever again.

Mila nods again. She starts to walk away, and for a terrible second Sara thinks she’s going to leave, but she doesn’t. She just goes to the window, opens it, lets her arms hang outside.

Sara sighs. There’s a bitter taste in her mouth, one she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to wash away. It physically hurts to look at Mila, her biggest rival and probably the love of her life, who takes everything from her on the ice and off of it too, leaves her empty and then asks for _more_.

And Sara _wants_ to give her more.

She walks to where Mila is standing and brushes their shoulders together. Raises her camera.

“Want to look at the pictures I took?”

Mila turns to her. She’s not crying, but she looks drained. Maybe this is as exhausting for her as it is for Sara.

“Okay,” she says.

It started in Sochi, Sara suddenly remembers. The Olympics then were bitter and disappointing for both of them, maybe even more for Mila, knocked off the podium on home ice. They met each other in the locker room, and Sara said “Hey, want to get out of here and do something stupid?”

Mila’s eyes were wet from tears, her face blotchy and red, but in that moment her clear blue eyes sparkled, and Sara saw a glimpse of something feral and dangerous.

“Sure,” Mila said.

The stupid thing was pizza and ice cream.

“Coach will kill me if he finds out,” Mila said, smiling around a bite of chocolate mint cone.

“Fuck the police,” Sara said. Mila laughed loudly, which pleased Sara; she liked making pretty girls laugh.

They went to Sara’s room then, where Sara showed Mila her photographs. They made it through five pictures before Mila leaned up and kissed her.

Sara let her. Mila’s mouth tasted sweet and fresh. Her lips were chapped from both the cold and a nervous biting habit.

When they pulled apart, Sara noticed Mila’s nose was still red from crying. She had that same look in her eyes. 

_Ah_ , Sara thought. _This girl will be my undoing_.

Mila went for a second kiss, but Sara held her at arm’s length.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We can’t.”

And she kept saying the same thing for four years. _We have to focus on our careers. You’re too young. I have the Olympics to think about._

And so here they are, one of them a winner and the other a loser. One of them young and the other ancient for the sport, joints cracking and knees giving out.

“This was my last Olympics,” Sara says, looking at Mila, who takes her eyes off the camera display to look back. When Sara smiles it is a bitter, twisted thing. “I tried, but I wasn’t good enough.”

Mila nods. Sara sighs. There isn’t much left to say, so she leans up and kisses Mila.

It’s brief, barely a touch of closed lips. When they break apart Mila has a hand fisted on Sara’s shirt, and she looks like she might cry.

“I need to know,” she says, voice pitched high and wet. “You will not back down again. You want this.”

“Yes,” Sara says. 

It’s enough.

Later, after hundreds of kisses and touches that don’t quite make up for lost time, they lie in bed tangled in each other, Sara’s head on Mila’s chest.

“Will you come to the medal ceremony tomorrow?” Mila asks. It sounds scared, tentative, a question that can only be asked in the dark.

Sara draws circles on the skin of Mila’s belly and lifts her head to whisper the only possible answer into Mila’s mouth.


End file.
